Chapter 26

Chapter Twenty-Six

CLIO

Lyceus used his boot to push Lyre onto his back. Lyre panted for air, eyes squeezed shut and face contorted in pain, still gripping his chest as though holding himself together.

" Lyre ."

The power of the aphrodesia in Lyceus's voice struck Clio with more force than the howling winds of the desert storm they'd escaped. Lyre went rigid, every muscle in his body tensing, then he slumped to the ground as though all his pain had vanished—or he couldn't feel it anymore. His eyes opened, hazy and blank.

Lyceus held his hand out to Madrigal, who returned the clock. The Rysalis patriarch crouched beside Lyre and took hold of his chin, forcing their eyes to meet. Lyre's eyes darkened to black, going even more out of focus.

"Lyre, tell me what this is."

Clio gasped when Madrigal grabbed her arm. He dragged her away from Lyceus and his helpless, enthralled son.

"Shall we find some privacy, love?" Madrigal crooned. "I don't particularly care to watch them."

Whimpering, she fought his hold, but her entire body was quaking. She suspected he could have taken full control of her will at any point, but he was enjoying her pitiful resistance.

"I've never liked that," the incubus continued conversationally as he hauled Clio into the trees. "Our father using aphrodesia on us is … we ll, you probably don't know that it's an absolute rule that incubi never use aphrodesia on other incubi."

He threw Clio to the ground. She landed on her back and he straddled her thighs, pinning her in place. "Our father has never had a problem with it, for some reason."

He trailed off, and in the absence of his purring tones, the power-laden rumble of Lyceus's voice drifted through the silent trees.

"I suppose it worked though," Madrigal continued, a slight rush in his words. "Trained us to never lie to him."

Madrigal glanced over his shoulder, then quickly refocused on Clio. He didn't want to hear what Lyceus was doing to Lyre, she realized fuzzily. He was talking to cover the sound of the interrogation.

"I'm glad this little side trip is over." He leaned down to capture her eyes, but she looked away, breathing fast. "I thought we would have to wait weeks for Lyre to come through a Brinford ley line and trigger one of the signal traps we set."

Madrigal touched the chain around her neck, and the defensive weaves shielding her body dissolved. His hand trailed down, dragging over her breast and across her belly. She writhed, desperate for his touch while also hating it.

Fight him. She needed to fight him. How did she fight him?

"Mmm," Madrigal crooned. "That fire in your eyes. Delicious. Did you fight Lyre too, or did you spread your legs for him like a proper whore?"

Gritting her teeth, Clio pulled together her shredded thoughts, focused her asper on his swirling aura, and mimicked it.

He recoiled, then grabbed her by the throat, cutting off her air. "You didn't think that would work on me twice, did you?" he hissed. "I did my research after the last time. A mimic . Impressive ability, but not enough."

Still sitting on her legs, he dragged her up and crushed his lips to hers. She shrieked against his mouth, but if his aphrodesia had been powerful before, now it was as intense as the sun. Her magic and concentration evaporated from the heat raging through her veins. Her mind emptied and her body took over—her hands grabbing at his shoulders, her mouth opening for him .

Through the trees, a cacophony of shouts erupted—voices that didn't belong to Lyceus or Lyre.

Swearing, Madrigal let go of her and jumped up. With a flick of his hand, he cast a binding spell over her, then raced into the trees. She hit the ground again, the spell trapping her arms and legs.

The moment he was out of sight, her awareness returned. She gasped, then gagged, spitting his taste out of her mouth.

The soft rush of the ley line gliding along her senses stuttered like a stone thrown into a stream—the sensation of a daemon coming or going through the line. The sudden chaos through the trees increased. Strange voices bellowed, then a burst of magic.

She struggled against the binding. Her body ached and burned, her muscles twitching, her heart still racing out of control like she had a deathly fever.

Sucking in a breath, she brought her asper into focus and craned her neck to examine the binding spell. She channeled a rough surge of magic over her body and a sloppy tangle of threads broke.

She clambered to her feet, breathing hard. Her legs shook, but she pushed into the undergrowth. As she approached the tiny clearing, her foot caught on something that clattered against a nearby tree trunk.

Lyre's bow, the string cut. Grabbing it, she peered through the foliage.

Madrigal and Lyceus stood side by side. The latter held the front of Lyre's shirt, and he hung limply in his father's grip, head rolled back. Madrigal had his bow raised, an arrow aimed at their new adversaries.

A dozen daemons spanned the space in front of the ley line—nymphs and chimeras in dark clothing, soaking wet, splattered with blood and orange mud from the desert. Bastian's men. But Bastian was dead, sprawled on the ground with his blond braid gleaming in the morning sun, an arrow protruding from his back.

This spot must be Bastian's rendezvous point. His soldiers, escaped from Aldrendahar, had arrived—only to find their prince slain.

One chimera was already down with an arrow in his throat, and the others had formed up, battle ready. With another blip in the line, two more nymphs came through. They took in the situation in a single shocked sweep of their asper, then jumped into position with their comrades. Every one of them was wrapped in master-weaver defensive shields.

This development didn't appear to concern Lyceus. Still holding Lyre by the shirtfront, he raised his other hand, fingers spread wide. Light flashed out from his palm and formed a golden circle filled with runes and markings.

Clio's mouth hung open. He hadn't woven that circle. He hadn't activated a gemstone weaving. The spell had just appeared .

Hovering in front of his hand, the circle rotated and the runes changed color—glowing red, green, blue, purple, orange. As power crackled through it like electricity, the whole circle and all the markings in it flashed to bluish white.

Bolts of pure lightning ripped out of the spell circle and launched at the Iridian soldiers. Half of them leaped frantically away. The other half trusted their shields to protect them.

Eight daemons crumpled to the ground, their bodies burnt and smoking, flesh ripped open.

Clio braced her hand on a nearby tree for support. Was that even magic ? She'd never seen anything like it. Even with her asper, she had no idea how the spell worked. It had blasted through the duplicates of Lyre's defensive weavings like they weren't even there.

The terrified Iridian soldiers backpedaled, some of them angling toward the ley line. Smirking, Madrigal lifted his bow and loosed an arrow. It struck the ground beside the chimera nearest the ley line. A beam of golden light burst from the arrowhead and slammed the five closest daemons away from the line.

Over a dozen of Irida's elite soldiers, protected with advanced shields, would be slaughtered by two master weavers.

Her hand rose to her throat, fingers closing over Lyre's chain. She lifted it, checking the remaining gemstones for something, anything , that might save them.

In the clearing, Madrigal pulled another arrow.

She pinched a ruby between her finger and thumb. An illusion spell. But of what? No way to know, but if Lyre was carrying it on his main spell chain, it had to be intended for dire circumstances .

With furious bellows, the remaining soldiers raised their swords and charged the two incubi. Clio snapped the ruby off, activated the spell, and threw it into the clearing.

Light flashed, startling Madrigal and causing Lyceus to look over. A web of magic shot across the ground, racing beneath the feet of every daemon and casting a wash of golden light over them.

Another flash, and suddenly there were forty daemons in the clearing instead of ten.

The illusion had created doppelgangers. As the nymphs and chimeras recoiled from their illusory doubles, the fakes mimicked their movements. The chaotic tangle of daemons and illusions was dizzying.

Gripping Lyre's bow, Clio threw herself into the mayhem.

With everything cast in a golden hue, the duplicates and the originals all looked alike. But not to her—and not to the other four nymphs. They scarcely hesitated before turning on Lyceus and Madrigal. Their lookalikes charged too.

Clio rushed in behind the distracted incubi, a spell already forming in her hand—but not an attack. She skidded onto her knees beside Lyre and used her cast to cut through his shirt just below Lyceus's hand. Lyre fell from his father's grip and hit the ground with a wide-eyed gasp.

Lyceus's head jerked around, his amber eyes darkening. Crouched beside him, Clio swung Lyre's bow as hard as she could—smashing it into Lyceus's ankles, the weakest point in the master-weaver shield.

Lyceus pitched sideways, falling into Madrigal.

Clio grabbed Lyre's uninjured arm to haul him up, but he was already stumbling to his feet. Clutching each other, they bolted toward the ley line. Clio led the way, cutting through the illusions while dodging the real daemons. The ley line loomed only a few yards ahead.

Agony exploded in Clio's shoulder. She crashed to the ground, and before she even realized she'd been hit, Lyre had grabbed the arrow and ripped it out. He threw it away as the spell activated, the whirl of golden magic snaking harmlessly across the dirt instead of her flesh.

Sagging from the pain, she twisted around. As Madrigal shot down another nymph to clear a path, Lyceus strode toward her and Lyre, his hand rising, fingers spread for another cast .

Lyre reached over his shoulder, snatched a black-fletched arrow out of his quiver, and closed his bloody hand around the arrowhead. Red light shone between his fingers as he threw the bolt.

It landed point first in the ground halfway between them and Lyceus. The incubus stopped, his attention fixed on the arrow.

The eerie red glow pulsed once.

Lyre clamped his arms around Clio.

It pulsed again.

He launched to his feet, pulling her with him.

It pulsed a third time.

Lyre threw them into the ley line, and the moment before they fell into the Void, the arrow exploded—an earsplitting eruption that turned the whole world crimson.